Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jun 24, 2015 5:31:36 GMT
I have heard lots of stories about haunted dice, and I am starting to believe them. I'll start by saying that I love my Chessex dice, they are clear teal and have snowy white numbers (just so they won't kill me). I sort of wanted them frosted, but this is almost as good.
I will give a list of things that happened throughout the game:
1. Players pants an unruly Tavern Drunkard.
2. Players convince the Tavern Keeper to give them free rooms.
3. Players find gold stashed under their beds
4. Players awake and then figure out a puzzle... Instantly.
5. Players ignore all my traps, flawlessly.
6. Players manage to shout at a sleeping Nothic without waking it.
7. Players actually converse with and tame the Nothic who they affectionately call Laddie.
All these were Natural Twenties, and I skipped many in between these. This was probably the first time I have had a player say to me that he/she wants to quit. The exact words (and get this) were: "if anyone rolls another 20 I am completely finished with this game".
so... The dice decided to bless this player with four Critical ones... In. A. Row.
At the end of the day everyone had fun, but I kept count. 28/34 rolls were either a Critical Failure... or Success.
Ill also say (outside the evil dice) it was the best game I ever DMd so far (which isn't saying much, I have only done 3 or 4). I was able to get 3 people who swore the game was 1. Childish 2. Stupid and 3. Waste of Time to actually ask me if they could play.
Now how am I going to fit a Nothic into the story?
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Post by Tesla Ranger on Jun 24, 2015 15:37:33 GMT
Now how am I going to fit a Nothic into the story? The Great McGuffin hero/wizard/princess/badass scientist of old was cursed by a wicked something-or-other and transformed into a Nothic until they manage to get a "true" kiss from the prettiest guy/gal/piglet in all the land. Kudos for being able to make such an entertaining string of events out of random rolls. We certainly have nights that have more 20s than other nights but not quite like that. I have once seen 4 consecutive natural 20s rolled on the same die (which resulted in some super-dead baddy). I also had an early encounter with 5 or 6 consecutive 1s and the DM was employing Skyrim-type physics to continue "punishing" my character for rolling low. It seems really weird at the time but only because our fleshy human brains keep trying to ascribe patterns where they don't exist. To be honest, all the muck-a-roo around sequential used to bug me way back years ago. Then I realized that the Gambler's Fallacy is effectively part of our tabletop culture and it certainly wouldn't be the first tradition with a fabricated premise that remains culturally relevant. And culture is shiny. |
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jun 24, 2015 15:56:27 GMT
The Great McGuffin hero/wizard/princess/badass scientist of old was cursed by a wicked something-or-other and transformed into a Nothic until they manage to get a "true" kiss from the prettiest guy/gal/piglet in all the land. Kudos for being able to make such an entertaining string of events out of random rolls. We certainly have nights that have more 20s than other nights but not quite like that. I have once seen 4 consecutive natural 20s rolled on the same die (which resulted in some super-dead baddy). I also had an early encounter with 5 or 6 consecutive 1s and the DM was employing Skyrim-type physics to continue "punishing" my character for rolling low. 1. That is a great idea. I was thinking about just killing it off, my players found it. I'm just afraid that my players (especially the one who tamed it) would hate me afterward. Your idea seems great (and I already have some new ideas for that). 2. Yep! It was the consecutive rolls that did. We had four 20s in a row... followed by four 1s in a row. |
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Post by joatmoniac on Jun 24, 2015 16:55:57 GMT
That is a crazy string of events in terms of rolls. Just to keep the tinfoil hat on about high rolls here is a video showing what unbalanced dice look like, and there is a surprisingly high amount of 20s coming up!
I really like the idea of having them be the Great McGuffin, and that could definitely work really well. The other idea could be that it has it's own devices, and maybe isn't actually tamed, but just sticking to the party to learn what it can. The Nothic are neutral evil, so who knows what its actual plans really are, and potentially having it become a BBEG, or the lackey of one could be really cool.
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Post by friartook on Jun 25, 2015 16:10:19 GMT
Crits are crazy and I love how they affect a table! I've never seen a night with that high a percentage, but we've had some high crit evenings. Perhaps you should consider a professional Dice Exorcism?
I've got one player with the most amazing luck. He consistently rolls 20s when the chips are really down. I have twice seen him roll a 1, then for whatever reason (inspiration, advantage forgotten, etc.) make a new roll for the same check and come up with a 20. He once jumped off a 2000 foot high falling tree in an attempt to land on the back of a giant bird 2/3 of the way down. He rolled a 1, another player gave him a point of inspiration...and he comes up with a 20!
As to the Nothic, I think the idea of trying to save him and reverse his condition is a great plot hook. Nothics are constantly searching for a way to reverse their state.
Also, remember for the future: If you really don't want your players to succeed in a certain check, don't offer the chance to roll!
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jun 25, 2015 16:15:17 GMT
I'll admit, there was a part of me that thought... If they can roll a 20 and pull this off, having a giant Nothic body guard would just be hilarious... (Though it makes encounters even more difficult to measure).
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Post by joatmoniac on Jun 25, 2015 20:58:56 GMT
I did almost the exact same thing. My party had a goblin with severe Stockholm syndrome, who was now faithfully traveling, but they wanted another goblin to join them. So I allowed it. Then they went into a dungeon, but the goblins were the last two to go in. Only one goblin ever went into that dungeon ... Later they tried convincing a Nothic to join them, and I allowed them to talk their way out of a fight, until of course a single party member went back through the area with the Nothic, and then was brutally murdered, haha. He ended up being fine as the goblin valiantly defended his body, haha.
I also have a super lucky player, who recently tracked something I didn't really intend for him to find. Set the initial track skill check relatively low and had several more needed that ramped up into the player needing an 18+ plus on the die. Of course it worked out, and of course everything went well after that and I have to handle the repercussions of the money that they have come into. The joys of DM life!
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Post by friartook on Jun 25, 2015 21:09:53 GMT
I also have a super lucky player, who recently tracked something I didn't really intend for him to find. Set the initial track skill check relatively low and had several more needed that ramped up into the player needing an 18+ plus on the die. Of course it worked out, and of course everything went well after that and I have to handle the repercussions of the money that they have come into. The joys of DM life! Like I said: if you never intend your players to find/track/charm/persuade/convince/tame/avoid something you've put in their path, then don't even allow them a skill check. Or allow it, and just say it fails no matter what. A 20 just makes it not fail as badly. Abuse of power you say? Well, maybe...  |
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Post by joatmoniac on Jun 26, 2015 0:38:53 GMT
Haha, too true. I suppose the proper word was planned rather than intended. The whole thing spurred from a random encounter with an Owlbear. They are first level and things went pretty south for them during that fight. Especially since the player with the top initiative, and the cleric, ran away without really thinking about or consulting the group. They managed to kill it though with some quick thinking and lucky rolls for the Owlbear being confused. Then they wanted to track it back to its lair/nest. Insert ridiculous rolls. They want to find babies. I open rolled to see how many there were, and there were several. They manage to wrestle them and take them back to the fairly large town to be sold. I had to make up items for the town and they bartered for them, but the adventure is fairly rough because its a superdungeon, so i can always make the noise in this room alert that room and that room and that room. It will be good times, and they did a great job working through both fights and the social battles I improved for bringing back a set of baby Owlbears, haha.
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jun 26, 2015 2:41:14 GMT
Now I'm not sure whether to make of the Nothic. If he disappears I could weave it just right and make my players sad (though if I do it wrong...). If he transforms it will vary depending on what he transforms into and how the players feel about that particular thing or person.
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Post by Tesla Ranger on Jun 26, 2015 4:07:33 GMT
My hunch (and it's just a hunch) is that if keeping the Nothic around adds an otherwise unique element to the campaign, and if the players are enjoying that element, then there's probably no reason to drop it.
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
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Post by Samuel Wise on Jun 26, 2015 4:21:21 GMT
Except it could add a real emotional moment for its "owner" and all the other players in the group (since they have all grown attached to it). But that would be the only benefit for that.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2015 23:05:32 GMT
I finally did the salt water test and yeah... two of my 20's are heavily biased. One of them showed a face-up 12, the other an 18.
As for the Nothic, it sounds as if you might have found your own Stomp.
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Post by joatmoniac on Jul 2, 2015 19:00:12 GMT
As for the Nothic, it sounds as if you might have found your own Stomp. I let out an audible gasp at this idea. A Nothic could be the perfect puppet master behind a throne. Especially given that it could be gleaning secrets from everyone that comes into the castle. Give him a few class levels and it could easily transcend into the BBEG! |
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Samuel Wise
Demigod
Ready to Help...
Posts: 989
Favorite D&D Class: Warlock
Favorite D&D Race: Mousefolk
|
Post by Samuel Wise on Jul 2, 2015 19:54:56 GMT
As for the Nothic, it sounds as if you might have found your own Stomp. Give him a few class levels and it could easily transcend into the BBEG! My players are still willfully ignorant of the level of intelligence in a Nothic (they aren't even 100% sure what a Nothic is). This is either going to be a fun pet, as they suppose (and yes, in a very Stompish fashion, just with a lot more evil tendency). Or it is really going to backfire on them, badly. another idea is having the Nothic still work for the players, but do increasingly violent acts which horrifies them. It could be a slow and painful descent into BBEGness. |
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